The present invention relates to furniture and, more particularly, to file drawers, cabinets and the like.
A wide variety of furniture systems and components are presently available for the storage of documents, file folders and other items in a vertical orientation. Free-standing file cabinets, desk pedestals and other such components include drawers having spaced, parallel sides, a front, a back and a bottom. Different proposals have been made for organizing documents and files in a vertical position within such drawers. For example, hang files have been used to support documents. Such hang files include hooks to suspend the file from parallel sides of the drawer.
Adjustable partitions have also been proposed. Such partitions may be generally rectangular members which are selectively positionable at discrete locations to subdivide the drawer into smaller compartments. If the subdivided areas are not full, the documents will not stand up vertically. Selectively positionable partitions are, therefore, only a partial solution to the problem.
It has been proposed to construct drawers with slideably positionable partitions or file compressors. Provision is made for locking or holding the partitions in selected positions at which they engage and compress documents, files and the like to maintain them in a vertical position. Examples of prior file compressors may be found in U.S. Pat. No. 2,693,192 entitled FILE FOLLOWER, which issued on Nov. 2, 1954 to James; U.S. Pat. No. 3,499,695 entitled DRAWER AND COMPRESSOR PLATE CONSTRUCTION, which issued on Mar. 10, 1972 to Studinski; commonly owned U.S. Pat. No. 3,892,451 entitled DRAWER, which issued on Jul. 1, 1975 to Bruins; U.S. Pat. No. 4,067,630 entitled FILE DRAWER COMPRESSOR, which issued on Jan. 10, 1978 to Stark et al; and U.S. Pat. No. 4,102,470 entitled DRAWER FILE FOLDER STOP, which issued on Jul. 25, 1978 to Timmons.
Prior file compressors have been integrated into the drawer structure and, hence, are not readily removable. Other structures suffer from undue complexity or a lack of sufficient rigidity to support documents, files and the like in a vertical orientation. Many prior file compressors are incrementally adjustable and not infinitely adjustable between the front and back of the drawer. In addition, existing file compressors are not usable in different size drawers.